Public Statements

Wyoming Senators Seek to Stop International Threat to U.S. Gun Freedom

Press Release

Negotiations on the UN Arms Trade Treaty are set to continue next week in New York. That concerns a group of lawmakers who introduced a resolution today warning that because, among other concerns, the agreement represents a threat to the Constitutional right of U.S. citizens to keep and bear arms, the treaty is going nowhere.

"The Second Amendment was put in place to guarantee Americans a vital freedom. There are efforts underway domestically in Congress to take away and restrict this guarantee. With this UN arms treaty we see an attempt by those from outside our country to also undermine these rights. In Wyoming we understand just how important it is to be able to keep and bear arms and I will continue to stand up for those rights on both foreign and domestic fronts," said U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

"This irresponsible treaty would effectively allow the United Nations to maintain a gun registry of all U.S. gun owners," said U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyo. "Our resolution sends a clear message that the President should not sign the treaty and the Senate should not ratify it."

The Wyoming senators joined with Senator Jerry Moran, R-Kan. and 26 other senators in introducing a concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the treaty, "poses significant risks to the national security, foreign policy, and economic interests of the United States as well as to the constitutional rights of United States citizens and United States sovereignty ". The resolution encourages President Obama not to sign the agreement and reminds proponents that no treaty can take effect unless it has been signed by the president, ratified by the Senate and Congress has passed legislation to implement it. That prospect is made less likely by the senators' introduction of the resolution.

In addition to Second Amendment concerns, the resolution outlined concerns that the UN Arms treaty could impede U.S. arms transfers to its allies, open up the U.S. to "lawfare" from other countries abusing criteria in the treaty and transfer authority to an international bureaucracy not accountable to U.S. citizens.